


Forests nothing like her own

by LydiaFearing



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Child, Dalish, Drabble, F/M, Family, Fluff, Parents, elf musings, inquisition as family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 13:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4102489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaFearing/pseuds/LydiaFearing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inquisitor Lavellan spends time alone in the forests when she misses Dalish life but it isn't the same. The life she has now is far from what she had ever wanted. Back in Skyhold, she realises that does not make her life any less fulfilling.</p><p> </p><p>Just a drabble I needed to get out of my head because Lavellans must go through a lot of culture shock especially if you have a wee shem baby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forests nothing like her own

The nearest forests were nothing like her own. When the visiting nobles grew scarce, when the requests for support were manageable or when she simply could not stand the weight of a roof over her anymore, she went to them. She would go yearning to see bright aravels cutting through the trees ahead of her, to hear the sound of halla leaping and telling their stories to each other. The air she wanted was mild and soft, the leaves she thought of were young and she was supposed to be one of many.

The nearest forests to Skyhold were cold. The air tasted sharp, the needles of the trees were sharper and she was alone. No halla. No clan. Alone with her sword. She missed long grass and laughter. Though she dare not admit it aloud, she sometimes missed knowing in simple terms who was ‘us’ and who was ‘them.’

She would find a comfort in it all the same. Make-believing. Reliving something lost to her. She did her best to ignore that this felt like mourning it.

One night alone with fire and stars was worth having. The second night never was. By dawn, the truth fell heavy in her gut that there was nothing in these trees for her. She turned back. By then she could not even pretend she had solitude. At least a few of Leliana’s people were sent to watch over her, though no one ever spoke of it. She never spotted them. She had hunted long enough to know she could but she never looked. They were why the castle always knew when she was returning. She had resented it once, her isolation being broken so quickly. She had to look the part, to kindly acknowledge whoever thought it worth waiting by the gates to welcome the mighty inquisitor. Her own people knew well enough to leave her be. She did not resent it so much when one little person had strength enough to bullet towards her with joyful, panicked shrieks of ‘Mamae, mamae!’ The struggle was in lifting the child into her arms before the mad, little thing knocked herself out against her mother’s armour. 

‘Hello, ma da'len.’ Her little child. Her little stranger. She was all peachy skin, masses of golden hair and she smelled of expensive soaps and cold stone walls. All the same, Lavellan buried her face into her child’s hair and smiled as ‘Mamae’ was whispered so softly it sounded like a prayer. 

There was nothing of the Dalish in her daughter. Jokes had been made that should Lavellan carry her child through a city, people would think her the child’s nanny. Only Lavellan herself would add that they were just as likely they would think she was her kidnapper. The truth of it never truly left her mind. There were times when she watched her daughter sleep and she wondered at how she became so different from what she had been promised to be. She was meant to protect her people. Now she was a ruler of dead stone walls, a prophet to a shemlen god, a woman with so much blood on her hands. The girl she once was would have been horrified that she had made a child with round little ears for the sake of a broad shouldered Templar who called out to Andraste in their bed. She could comfort herself that the girl she had been had not known much of the world. She could never have known how her daughter would trace the lines of her vasallin with tiny fingers and adoration. She could never have known how gentle her husband’s eyes would be when he told her he loved her or how often he would say it against her bare skin. 

When her little one was born, Josephine had suggested a future of alliances. Marriages were too distant to truly promise of course but to have allies line up with offers for the future would be a way to rally support through competition. It took a gentle reminder from Lavellan that most nobles, and a great many other humans, would be insulted by the very idea. Half an elf is too much elf. Josephine tried her best to wave away such concerns due to the changing times and the power of the Inquisition. Nothing ever came of it. Lavellan had long since assumed her ambassador had momentarily forgotten that the opinions within Skyhold were rather far from reflecting the whole of Thedas and she was too afraid to cause pain to ever admit it. 

Lavellan did not forget her daughter was too much an elf for most. It was even harder to forget she was far too human for the Dalish. Her daughter would not have aravels and halla and the voices of one people embracing her. She had stone walls. She had soldier barracks. She had a Tevinter mage to read her inappropriate bed time stories written by a famous Dwarven author. She had a Qunari warrior to coddle her and a foul-mouthed city elf to tickle her. She an Antivan ambassador and Orelesian spy master to teach her songs. She had a boy who was once a spirit to be endlessly fascinated with her tininess and her thoughts. She had dresses gifted from the Imperial Enchanter. She had blessings from the Divine. 

‘She found you then.’ Cullen had to pry their daughter from Lavellan so she could remove her armour which was always met with objections.

‘No! Mamae!’ 

‘Mamae will take you back in a moment, little nug.’ 

That was always when she wondered at her need to be alone in the forests. Little giggles and a low laugh made it seem like madness. 

‘There you are, back to Mamae. Happy now?’

Her daughter had a father that loved her. Perhaps just as fiercely as her mother did. When Lavellan decided that she would stop going back to the forests, she took her daughter from Cullen’s arms, kissed him and ruffled his hair to make him frown. 

‘I’m happy.’


End file.
